Education of Girls in India
Around the world girls and women are treated as number two citizens – all luxuries, comforts and even necessities must first be provided for boys and men, and only then, if available, can percolate to girls and women. This is true to some extent throughout the world but more so and very conspicuously so in India. For the past few centuries in India, the girl has been completely neglected even as a human being, and She lives as if only to support and satisfy men. In every home men today the boys are still pampered and given the best of everything and the girls of the same family are almost completely mirrored.
Even in the basic requirement of education, girls are left out because it is felt that, they in any case have only to look after their homes and the needs of their families, so where is the need to study? The only requirement of women is to look after the needs of others and give birth to children no more than they need to have. For this task of home-keeping assigned to women, it is felt by all that there is no need for them to go to school. It is considered foolish to allow girls to waste their time in studies and this concept is widely accepted by Indian society.
It may be very true that in the majority of cases the girl does not have to become and does not become the breadwinner of the family. However, in this process of thought we are inclined to forget that, to gee birth to the next generation and to bring up this new generation is the basic and all-important task not only for the family but also for the society and the country. What the mother teaches the child is deeply embedded in the heads and the hearts and even the little soul.
In this context thus, let us remember that what the mother teaches the child is all-important and ever-pervasive. For this important work of girls and women, I feel that they need education and, their negligence in this field is a mishap for the country. When mothers are not educated what will they be able to teach their children? Let us not forget that, the purpose of education is not only earning a livelihood but education makes an individual into a good human being, which is passed, on to the next in the kith and kin.
With this backdrop of our attitudes of educating girls, I personally feel that education for girls in India must be taken up as an issue, on a war footing as, it has already been neglected for far too long. From the urban poor and rural India, girls are very rarely to never sent to schools. If in some cases they are sent to schools, it is just for two or three years when they are small and are of no use for household chores.
Once they are big enough to share the burden of housework they are made to drop out of school. Now, it is absolutely essential for us to reconsider and mend our ways and attitudes towards girls and their education. If this is not given an immediate boost, the growth of the nation will be halted for unless these sections develop, India cannot develop. After all, how can we expect growth and progress when half of our population remains bereft of the gift of basic education?
It is true that the education of girls has lately taken a huge leap but this is only in a very small segment of Indian society. It is the upper-middle class and the rich doss that have realized the necessity of educating girls but this is not enough for, this is a very minimal number to be considered as an achievement.
This section of the society contributes a very small percentage of the total female population of India. Unless we move faster and continuously and include more poor urban and rural girls in the field of education, there can be no hope of having a developed and first-world country status for India. In this matter let us remember the adage (noun a well-known phrase expressing a general truth about people) that, when a man is educated, only he is educated but, when a woman is educated, a family gets educated. With this point of importance in mind, we should go ahead with broader-based education policies.